HIV and Sex Today: A Gay Man Speaks Out
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- From his HIV diagnosis in 1985 until his death in April of 2009, Cass Mann was one of the world's longest-term HIV-positive survivors. He founded Positively Healthy, the UK's only HIV/AIDS charity staffed exclusively by openly gay men, which provided HIV services including education, support, and peer counselling. These videos now archive his wisdom and insight for future generations. Here he talks about the realities of HIV in the gay community today. Any gay man becoming HIV positive in the United Kingdom today has at some level made a decision that it was OK if they contracted HIV, because we know how to prevent the transmission of HIV and if a man applies that knowledge it's extremely unlikely he'll contract HIV. Barebacking sounds romantic, but unprotected sex is slow suicide. It's choosing to take a risk each time of needlessly contracting HIV, which can kill you, as well as other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) like syphilis and hepatitis that can also be fatal. Parks, dark rooms and back rooms in clubs or elsewhere promote anonymous, unprotected, robotic sex. In the dark, you're unable to see skin rashes and blemishes, weeping or solid genital sores and warts that would make you aware that a potential partner has an STI. Just because there are condom dispensers on the walls doesn't mean they're being used and in most cases are there so that the sex venues can claim that they are safer sex venues when they are anything but. The labeling and validating of sex clubs in the United Kingdom as sanctioned "Play Zones" by the Terrence Higgins Trust, UK's premier AIDS charity, creates a false sense of security that the clubs are actually safe, when in fact they are not and unprotected sex happens there continuously. There's a high level of illegal drug use in the gay community today, and this increases the risk that people will choose to have unprotected sex while under the influence of these drugs. Condoms are for sex as seat belts are for driving: you need to put them on first every single time. If you respect yourself, you'll use a condom every time. Some young gay men feel like life will end for them at forty and therefore don't worry about contracting a disease that can kill them by forty. If you have unprotected sex with someone who is HIV positive or whose status you don't know, you are having sex with your potential killer. HIV positive people need to practice safer sex too to avoid the risk of superinfection, contracting resistant strains of HIV or developing new ones, or coinfection with other STIs. If gay men continue to have unsafe sex and contract HIV at the high rates we see today, the government, health authority funders and the general public may ultimately become unwilling to support health care funds for HIV/AIDS due to the perception that just as in the cases of obesity, alcohol-related and smoking-related diseases, a person's own choices are often responsible for a person contracting HIV deliberately. Protect yourself and your partner each and every time you have sex, whether or not you are already HIV positive! When you have sex, Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware!). For more information, visit www.AIDSvideos..... This video is freely downloadable from www.archive.org... . [Do you want to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS? Are you fluent in a language other than English? Then volunteer to translate our videos into other languages! Click AIDSvideos.org/... to to learn how you can help!!! © Copyright 2008-2011 Global Lifeworks. All rights reserved. This work is licensed to be used for non-commercial purposes under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit creativecommons....]
This man is brave enough to speaks the truth.
Hats off to you for speaking truthfully, plainly, and right to the point...I hope everyone will listen to this message and not criticize speaker, etc., but listen to his message!! I do believe this applies to all forms of "sexual desires"...whether gay, bi, straight, etc...Practice SAFE SEX and please remember if you are infected with HIV...let your friend/possible partner know. You may be surprised at his/her response. And honestly find love...thank you for bringing this awesome message
Cass, thanks to your advice, I have woken up, and turned myself around.
I appreciate your honesty.
Yes, you can contract HIV by giving or receiving oral sex. See our video "Some Ways You Can Contract HIV and the Risk of Each One" for details.
You are honest, I like you.
@DanielR305: This is Eric; I'm not a doctor. For performing oral sex on a man, to reduce your risk, you put a condom on the penis. For performing oral sex on a woman, to reduce your risk, you put a dental dam over the woman's genitals.
That's terrible! So sorry to hear that. To avoid be clear, Cass is talking in this video about people who voluntarily, knowingly engage in risky behavior. To knowingly infect another person with HIV is a criminal act. He discusses that topic in another video: "Disclosing HIV Status: Risk Rejection, or Prosecution?" Make sure you talk to an attorney about any option you may have to bring the person to justice and/or file a suit so you can decide in time if you wish to pursue those options.
Your are so right. Somethings needs to happen people are just not caring anymore. I am happy to say I am gay and sensible.
great analogy there with the seatbeat & condoms.
i conduct sexual health prevention and outreach with young people in SF, CA
and really appreciate your great thoughts here!
Vanae
Also, realize that trying to ban all clubs for gays would only drive them underground, which makes outreach education harder. HIV thrives in environments where people are stigmatized, discriminated against, and/or forced underground. It would also be wrong to ban people from attending bars based on their HIV status; that's illegal discrimination. Nor is it necessary. We need to find ways to encourage people to make responsible choices WITHOUT discriminating against them or stigmatizing them.
From Martyn Butler - founder THT
I loved the Embassy club especially when I stuffed it full of Laser Beams and especially grateful to Cass for helping me by running one of the very first AIDS/HIV benefits in the UK, without whose help the THT could well of been stillborn.
Dusty i'm so sorry. Jesus one of my friend's daughter got raped by a date & contacted hiv which later developed into Aids & died 5 years ago. Dusty are you female or male if its okay to ask? Also how old were you when it happened. Thank You.
Audio Gold bro....
Stacier333: Like you, I certainly disapprove of public, anonymous, unprotected sex, and I certainly think that we should investigate whether dark rooms/back rooms that promote this behavior can be closed on public health grounds just as San Francisco closed bathhouses early on in the AIDS epidemic. (Or simply require that all rooms in public bars be lighted, for example.) However, let's avoid using stigmatizing terms to describe people; it's hurtful.
What *specifically* do you think Cass is "wrong" about?
Oh happy days the early HEAVEN and the wonderful personality's that built it and created an institution with ramifications for us all that extend far beyond its portals.
Not a day goes by when I don't regret the failure of the gay community to stop HIV in its tracks, I believed somewhat naively that because it was so hard to catch (you actually had to have unprotected sex) that the AIDS pandemic predicted at the time was wholly avoidable.
"i'm sorry , did you really just say that hiv+ people made a choice about it? how dare you! "
You are welcome to take your opinions to the grave. The analogy of getting hit by car is correct. Everyone knows the consequence of running in front of a car. It is your right to do so, but when you get hit and crippled, you no longer have the right to victimhood. If this video is the ONLY truth you've ever heard about HIV, then you know the whole truth. Take it or leave it (at your peril)
no dont wanna make a liveing of it
Please no one deserves it? Everybody out there knows the risks they are taking when they dont practise safe sex. Sex these days is more than just sex, it can mean your life and thats including st8, bi gay, whatever. If you go out and make the choice to not practise safe sex than your taking your life in your own hands. Now there are situations in which everyone should be safe and sumhow still get infected and that to me are the ppl who dont deserve.
wtf? i was listening to music then bam! gay man speaks about hiv :|
Chris u r so silly. Why would u do that?
I may bee stereo typing.. but you don't look like a man that has or had safe sex! please correct me if I'm wrong!
How dare you! you shouldnt be allowed to be doing the job you are because wrong about a lot that you are saying